Monday, 4 April 2011

Sunday 3 April

The day start off fairly sunny, but we got a healthy dose of April showers not long after midday. Rain, hail, snow, not to mention the kitchen-sink came down. It is supposed to be mild darn sarf [down south], but not so up here in the far north. I kept a quiet day, looking into the witnesses to the Napier Commission who hailed from Taransay. That island's reputation took a bit of a knock in 2000, when 35 people were boated out there for 12 months and told, upon punishment of public humiliation, to build a community there. Local people were not really amused, except by the antics of some of the participants. Castaway 2000 only has one of the living pods left in mainland Harris - it sits along the village road into Luskentyre, 10 miles southwest of Tarbert.
There is a tinge of sadness about the personal story of the two witnesses. Although nobody lived permanently in the island after the 1880s, they both died on Taransay, in 1909 and 1913. People had to move away after they had been banned from sowing seed or keeping livestock.
Paible, Taransay, from Horgabost